DID YOU KNOW?

1,200 relics

95% of the relics are first class (from a saint’s body)

850 saints are included in the collection

1 full-body wax reliquary (St. Victoria)

1 reliquary of St. Peregrine used for monthly veneration and a quarterly cancer prayer service by the St. Peregrine Cancer Care Ministry

6 carved altars by Schroeder Brothers

2 relics of the True Cross

Most popular relics:

• Wood from the True Cross • Hair from Pope St. John Paul II • A relic of St. Maximilian Kolbe

Maria Stein Shrine of the Holy Relics has the second largest collection of relics in the United States.

1850 All Swiss Sisters of the Precious Blood relocate to America

1872 Father J. M. Garner of Milwaukee added 175 more relics (now housed in the main altar) to the collection.

Father Brunner was a Benedictine priest in Maria Stein. He joined the Congregation of the Most Precious Blood after political upheaval in Europe. Archbishop John Baptist Purcell invited him to travel to Ohio and minister to German-speaking Catholics. His mother, Maria Anna Brunner, founded a community of Precious Blood Sisters. He brought 10 of the sisters with him, along with his collection of relics.

26 | THE CATHOLIC TELEGRAPH Maria Stein is the Virgin Mary. The title comes from a shrine to Mary of the Rock (“Maria Stein”). It was built in a cave in the Swiss Alps in the 1300’s after a young boy fell from a cliff and was found picking flowers for the “beautiful lady” who saved him. Later, Benedictines built a monastery there. “Pilgrims don’t have to go to Rome to come in contact with items attached to the life Christ, they are right here in our archdiocese. In the high altar of the Relic Chapel we have small pieces of the True Cross, manger, last supper table, dirt from the tomb, Veronica’s veil, a thorn from the crown of thorns, and many others. These relics from daily life, usually considered second class for saints, are first class for Our Lord.” – Matt Hess, Maria Stein Shrine Director of Programming